Bergson : Henri (1859-1941), French philosopher, exponent of process philosophy. His works won him the 1927 Nobel Prize for Literature.
... metaphysicised away or else inadequately metaphysicised. Bergson is perhaps the most notable: he has brought in his later works his earlier "Duree" and "Elan Vital" and "Intuition" or "In-feeling" into significant touch with the date of mystical experience. But there is not yet precisely the grand synthesis called for by the findings of science. Bergson is the philosopher of life: neither matter nor mind... own right. At this point, apropos of Bergson in particular, we may mention that the grand synthesis of which we have spoken Page 314 involves also two "stresses" without which a philosophy of the scientific age would be incomplete. One is with regard to further evolution. Of course the idea of evolution, which is at white heat in Bergson though a kindling force too in Lloyd Morgan... be within. A semi-mysticism is definitely indicated as inherent in the evolution-stress that is characteristic of modem science. Among European philosophers who have handled the evolutionary theme, Bergson whom we noted to have been most intensely charged with the idea of evolution is also the one who has best realised the inward nature of the method by which contact with the true springs of progress ...
... l realities behind that movement. Bergson does not, of course, point to any existence behind the continuous flux of life-power—the elan vital. He seems to deny any static truth or truths to be seen and seized in any scheme of knowledge. To him the dynamic flow—the Heraclitian panta reei is the ultimate reality. It is precisely to this view of things that Bergson owes his conception of Intuition.... la Deesse Raison. And it is precisely against these two basic principles that the new, age has entered its protest. In face of Humanism, Nietzsche has posited the Superman and in face of Reason; Bergson has posited Intuition. The worship of man as something essentially and exclusively human necessitates as a corollary, the other doctrine, viz. the deification of Reason; and vice versa. Humanism... is the insufficiency of Reason? How does it limit man ? And what is the Superman into which man is asked or is being impelled to grow ? Reason is insufficient and unsatisfactory because, as Bergson explains, it does not and cannot embrace life as a whole, seize man and the world in an integral realisation/The greater part of the vast mystery of existence escapes its envergure. Reason is that ...
... realities behind that movement. Bergson does not, of course, point to any existence behind the continuous flux of life-power - the elan vital. He seems to deny any static truth or truths to be seen and seized in any scheme of knowledge.. To him the dynamic flow - the Heraclitian panta reei is the ultimate reality. It is precisely to this view of things that Bergson owes his conception of Intuition... Déesse Raison. And it is precisely against these two basic principles that the new age has entered its protest. In face of Humanism, Nietzsche has posited the Superman and in face of Reason Bergson has posited Intuition. The worship of man as something essentially and exclusively human necessitates as a corollary, the other doctrine, viz. the deification of Reason; and vice... the insufficiency of Reason? How does it limit man? And what is the Superman into which man is asked or is being impelled to grow? Reason is insufficient and unsatisfactory because, as Bergson explains, it does not and cannot embrace life as a whole, seize man and the world in an integral realisation. The greater part of the vast mystery of existence escapes its envergure. Reason is ...
... point where he himself may transcend language and pass to incommunicable insight." 12 Indeed, for Bergson, reality has to be known by a direct intuition in some sort of a "pure experience" discovered by the stripping off of the veil of speech. But this intuitional knowledge of which Bergson speaks, this "knowledge by pure acquaintance - pure presentational immediacy" is altogether denied any... 11 (ii) We know that to Plato language seemed to be a veil interposed between us and reality, which has to be torn away and cast aside if we would see reality face to face. And in our time Bergson has emphatically put forward the view that our language is by no means moulded on reality and therefore to know reality we must perforce abandon language and the categories generated by language. And... transformation its elementary process.... The very idea of a non-rational source of any knowledge vitiates the concept of mind as an organ of understanding. And the sort of 'intuitive' knowledge which Bergson extols above all rational knowledge because it is supposedly not mediated by any formulating (and hence deforming) symbol is itself perfectly rational.... For rationality is embodied in every mental ...
... A Philosophy of Evolution for the Contemporary Man A Deeper Question Henri Bergson (1859-1941) There is still a deeper question. Why do variations occur? Whether they are small or great, gradual or abrupt, we cannot trace them to the influence of the environment. For types without variations seem to be just as well adapted as those with them... complexes, involving many minor and consequential modifications and variations. Each single small variation is not independently selected. In other words, the organisms seem to 'vary' as a whole. Bergson pointed out that the molluscs in the order of evolution proceed by steady steps to develop an eye, which resembles very much the eye developed by the independent line of vertebrates. How does it... appear in different lines of evolution brought about by different means? How could the same small variations occur in two independent lines of evolution if they were purely accidental? According to Bergson, the two series must have been governed by a common vital impulse to this useful end. There is something more in evolution than merely mechanical .urge. He is inclined to attribute a 'rudiment of ...
... made part of it, divinely possible. Page 373 Comments on Terms Used by Henri Bergson The six replies in this group were written to a correspondent who quoted sentences from Bergson's writings, commented on them and then asked Sri Aurobindo for his views.—Ed. I have not read him [ Bergson ] sufficiently to pronounce. So far as I know, he seems to have some perception of the dynamic... while the first which is the real thing behind creation he sees very dimly. Page 374 He [ Bergson ] sees Consciousness (Chit) not in its essential truth but as a creative Force = a sort of transcendent Life-Energy descending into Matter and acting there. I suppose Bergson must already know what the "mystics" say about the matter and has put his own interpretation or value upon... he takes to be the sole secret of things is only a secondary manifestation of something transcendent which is itself only the "rays of the Sun". Instinct and intuition as described by him [ Bergson ] are vital, but it is possible to develop a corresponding mental intuition, and that is probably what he suggests—and which depends not on thought but a sort of mental direct contact with things. ...
... The correspondent, who had just read Henri Bergson's L'energie spirituelle, asked whether Bergson is right that many dreams are brought about by external causes. He also noted that Bergson seems to consider all consciousness as memory. Finally he wondered why Bergson used the word "spirituelle" in the title of the book since there was hardly anything about "spirit" in it.—Ed ...
... complexes, involving many minor and consequential modifications and variations. Each single small variation is not independently selected. In other words, the organisms seem to 'vary' as a whole. Bergson pointed out that the molluscs in the order of evolution proceed by steady steps to develop an eye, which resembles very much the eye developed by the independent line of vertebrates. How does it happen... appear in different lines of evolution brought about by different means? How could the same small variations occur in two independent lines of evolution if they were purely accidental? According to Bergson, the two series must have been governed by a common vital impulse to this useful end. There is something more in evolution than merely mechanical urge. He is inclined to attribute a 'rudiment of choice'... species which, travelling by different paths, reach the same goal. Given a new situation, the 'urge' ( elan vital) , common to all members, leads them to meet it by a new method. According to Bergson, it is the inner urge, or life force, or an upward drive that incites the whole species in a definite direction. The striving of the organism is the creative effort to which evolution is due. ...
... you like! It is most amazing that after every tension I get such new flashes metrically though! Reminded of Bergson who says: life's unfolding proceeds by tensions followed by evolution. " Is it true that? But whatever you may say against dramas life does corroborate Bergson at least this terrestrial life as it is does. N'est-ce pas ? At least somewhat? Eh ? Humph! Such a method... method is all very well, but one has so much of it in life and in this Ashram that I rather yearn for a smoother un Bergsonian evolution. Even if the Lord God and Bergson planned it together, I move an amendment. Page 368 December 21, 1935 I am keeping the estimate and Meghen's letter for further examination. I should like to ask certain questions. (1) When were the last repairs ...
... Integral Yoga, Evolution and the Next Species Part Two Philosophical Theories of Evolution Henri Bergson Henri Bergson (1859-1941) developed the theory that there is something more in evolution than merely mechanical urge. He pointed out that the molluscs in the order of evolution proceed by steady steps to develop an eye, which resembles... to the species which, traveling by different paths, reach the same goal. Given a new situation, the 'urge' (élan vital), common to all members, impels them to lead it by a new method. According to Bergson, it is the inner urge, or life-force, or an upward drive that incites the whole species in a definite direction. The striving of the organism is a creative effort to which evolution is due.10 ...
... wayfaring. This sense of ever progressive movement is very evident in Rabindranath. Several critics have compared Bergson with him in this connection. There is much similarity between the two; but, I think, their difference also is vital and fundamental. The progression of Bergson is the final, ultimate, sole and primeval truth. It is mere progressiveness without any cause. It is doubtful if it has... movement is fundamentally a spiritual aspiration, a longing for the Divine – this aspiration and this longing are sweet, deep and penetrating and at once refined and transparent. The é lan vital of Bergson is mainly a movement of nature and the life-force, however he might have tried to put on it towards the end a veneer of spirituality, of Christian religiosity. Indeed this dynamism has given a unique ...
... it a long time ago and do not remember it very well except that it was very interesting and not at all an ordinary book in its kind, but full of valuable suggestions. 1 July 1933 Henri Bergson Bergson writes that the progress of Life is marked by tensions succeeded by flowerings. What do you think of that, since the great philosopher too agrees with our way of marching to Beatitude through... of it in life and in this Ashram that I rather yearn for some other unBergsonian evolution. Even if the Lord God and Bergson planned it together, I move an amendment. 11 December 1935 In his latest book, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, Page 526 Bergson says that the imagelessness or blankness of mind is a pure myth and an impossibility. As a Vedantist, I have always cherished... Now Chinese and Japanese art is recognised and to a less degree the art of India, Persia and the former Indian colonies in the Far-East, but in philosophy the old ideas still reign. "From Thales to Bergson" is their idea of the History of Philosophy. 2 May 1936 Plato Plato says [according to Weber, p. 86]: "The world of sense is the copy of the world of Ideas, and conversely, the world of ideas ...
... It is a common enough experience with many thinkers that instead of offering precise and unequivocal definitions they throw 22. Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution, p. 31. Compare the following comments offered by Will Durant on Bergson: "If Bergson is occasionally obscure it is by the squandered wealth of his imagery, his analogies, and his illustrations; he has an almost Semitic passion... brush or the poet's quill and thus strive to induce in their readers a sense of the demonstrative veracity of the ideas put forward. To select only a single instance out of a legion, let us listen to Bergson discussing 'Vitality': "A very small element of a curve is very near to being a straight line. And the smaller it is, the nearer. In the limit it may be termed a part of the straight line, as ...
... PREM (RONALD NIXON) TO MR. KOSKE AND A COMMENT BY K. D. SETHNA The Letter September 1946 Dear Mr. Koske, "Whom should I believe?" You can cut Bradley, Bergson, Hegel, etc., out of the list as admittedly their views are mere speculations. They do not even claim to have reached the other shore. How, then, will they guide us? It is useless to reach one unique... philosophy? A system may not give every colour and contour of truth, yet it can be accurate in general outline and general proportion. Of course, as Krishna Prem writes, mere speculators like Bradley, Bergson, Hegel, etc., can never give us the ultimate philosophy. Only those who philosophise through but not with the intellect can be said to be in the running, since they speak out of a light beyond ...
... theory at all. A theory may be true or false and yet you may obtain results from it. A theory simply puts you in a condition when something behind you can work through you. That is the whole stand of Bergson. Theory merely convinces you and thereby produces the necessary inner condition. That is all. It may be true or it may be false. Freud may have cured people as Coué cures them now. But does he cure... Because there is no such gap, the transformation cannot be understood by science. It is futile to ask "why", because science can only know the "process", the "how", of things. Disciple : Bergson says that mental knowledge only applies to the physico-chemical world and that the problem of life can only be grasped by intuition. Sri Aurobindo : Yes, it is true. Mind itself understands ...
... finds in Sri Aurobindo's thought the "meeting of the East and the West", and he also makes interesting comparisons between Sri Aurobindo and Western thinkers like Plato, Plotinus, Hegel, Hartmann, Bergson, Whitehead and others. 64 Plato, like Sri Aurobindo, was a seer and a poet, but as a philosopher he was rather less consistent than the Indian thinker. Plotinus' double trinity is ... step of the evolutionary advance. Hartmann's dualism of value and reality is apparently in sharp contrast to Sri Aurobindo's affirmation that value is also Reality. As for Bergson, although he was a 'volcanic thinker' like Sri Aurobindo, his theory of 'creative evolution lacks both the comprehensiveness and the logical clarity of the theory of Divine Evolution outlined in The ...
... has here an affinity with that earlier French philosopher who has profoundly influenced modern thought - Bergson - by his analysis of the time-experience and his clarification of what he termed "intuition", the supra-intellectual in-feeling of the very flow of life. Marcel and Bergson are two of the most powerful factors tending the contemporary French mind in the direction of the basic... so far for Europe's thought has been the publication of Le Phenomène humain (The Phenomenon of Man) by the Jesuit palaeontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin who too was once influenced by Bergson. The book is physics and biology argued out along lines prompted by poetic and religious intuition in a language at the same time precise and wide-suggestion'd. Teilhard begins with one main ...
... in this direction, nothing of the first importance in fact which India has not already stated in forms better suited to her own spiritual temper and genius, and though the thought of Nietzsche, of Bergson and of James has recently touched more vitally just a few minds here and there, their drift is much too externally pragmatic and vitalistic to be genuinely assimilable by the Indian spirit. But, p ...
... Multitude." Teilhard rejects orthodoxy's "pure nothingness" as a pseudo-idea. His ecclesiastical editors have at this point the footnote: "This questionable proposition is to be found in Bergson, too." 42 Evidently, Teilhard has proved heterodox in a subtle fashion. He has brought in a pseudo-nothingness. He goes Page 132 on to call the negative that precedes creation ...
... The Lamarckian theory introduces the element of purpose in evolution. Bergson's creative evolution opposes both the mechanistic theory of Darwin and also the ideological theory of Lamarck. Bergson posits a life-force which goes on creating ever new forms. Loyd Morgan and Alexander developed the theory of emergent evolution, which provides for the emergence of a new quality in the process ...
... there were of course the Impressionists, scandalizing but revolutionizing the world of the arts, not to forget the philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche, loosing his mind in the whirlpool of the age, Henri Bergson, and Sigmund Freud. This cascade of names reminds us that the age of Jules Verne (1828-1905), contemporary of Alfred Wallace, was much more than a time of rigidity and strictness à la Queen Victoria ...
... mechanics. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote almost simultaneously his works about the “will to power” and the “superman”, aiming at a “transvaluation of all values”. His work and that of his admirer Henri Bergson, who thought out the philosophy of the stream of consciousness and the élan vital, would lead the human reflection from the fortress of positivism unto new paths of vitalism and to Sigmund Freud ...
... of his cosmic sense and brought even traditional Christianity to this touchstone. "Though the force and usefulness of some of Teilhard's criticism should not be overlooked," Rideau envisages with Bergson a non-Teilhardian turn of man's mind in the future: "this hypothesis would weaken the case he made out against a theologi- 1.Op. cit. 2.Ibid., p. 369. 3.Ibid., p. 246 ...
... idea was put forward by Darwin in the modern times although the Upanishads speak of evolution and there was also the original Vedic idea of evolution. He also referred to the modern thinkers like Bergson, Samuel Alexander, Smutts and Whitehead. He also referred to Tiellhard de Chardin. He said that while there are many theories of evolution, the question is to find out certain crucial facts which will ...
... Significance of Philosophical Scepticism, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1984. Basu, S.C., The Vedanta Sutra of Bddardyana, with the commentary of Baldev, (tr.), Orient Book, N. Delhi, 1979. Bergson, H., Creative Evolution, (tr.), Arthur Mitchell, McMillan, London, 1928. Bhattacharya, K.C., Studies in Philosophy, Motilal Banarasi Dass, Delhi, 1983. Bohm, D., Quantum Theory, Englewood ...
... discovered that Prana, Life, is the Eternal. This is the position of vitalism, which finds that the whole world is pulsation of Life-Force, as is declared, in our modern times, by the French philosopher, Bergson. But Bhrigu did not stop here. He made a further ascent. And he declared that mind is the Eternal. In our times, philosophies which regard mind to be the original principle of existence are called ...
... humanity. But what again is this universal vital energy? This also is an instrument, not the ultimate agent. After all, vital energy is blind by itself; it moves instinctively or intuitively, as Bergson would say; it does not know consciously beforehand the next step it is going to take. Consciousness then is the secret. This is "the power behind the throne", it is this to which the Upanishad refers ...
... some of the early Greek thinkers (Anaxagoras or Democritus, for example), coming to more Page 326 recent times, we can say that line runs fairly well-represented from Leibnitz to Bergson. In India the Sankhyas and the Vaisheshikas move towards and approach the position; the Tantriks make a still more near approach. Once again, to repeat in other terms the distinction which may ...
... introspective analysis in the French language has been its asset and a characteristic capacity from the time of Descartes - through Malebranche and Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists - right down to Bergson. The English are not by nature meta-physicians, in spite of the Metaphysicals: but greatness has been thrust upon them. The strain of Celtic mysticism and contact with Indian spiritual lore have given ...
... existing, something persisting, continuing in the same condition, something fixed, a status. Freedom is not a thing of that kind, it is movement: even so, it is not a continuous movement. According to Bergson, the true, the ultimate reality is a continuity of urge ( é lan vital); according to Sartre, however, in line with the trend of modern scientific knowledge, the reality is an assemblage of discrete ...
... beauty gathered, like honey from all places and stored and ranged and stalled with the utmost decorative skill. Yet the difference between the two is not less pronounced. A philosopher is reminded of Bergson, the great exponent of movement as reality, in connection with certain aspects of Tagore. Indeed, Beauty in Tagore is something moving, flowing, dancing, rippling; it is especially the beauty which ...
... not only of our age, but of all ages. His all-embracing, crystal clear and profound philosophy is assuredly a contribution to human thought, vision and progress which ranks with that of Plato, Kant, Bergson or Goethe... the findings of Sri Aurobindo which we have no means of verifying at our level of experience actually supply all the consistency which strikes us in the explanation given by Sri Aurobindo ...
... 598 Basu, Arabinda, 752 Baudisch, A., 753 Beachcroft, C.P., 325,328,329 Bengalee, The, 34,183, 281, 312, 332, 335, 338 Bentinck, Lord William, 13 Bergson, Henri, 441 Besant, Annie, 266, 272, 412, 521 Bhagavad Gita, The, 6, 84, 156, 192, 285, 289ff, 297, 317, 318, 319, 336, 343, 344, 448, 449 Bharati, Shuddhananda, 579 ...
... ns. If it accepts the impersonal aspect of Reality, it rejects the personal; if it regards Reality as static and inactive, it dubs all creation and action as illusion; or if, like Heraclitus and Bergson, it perceives ¹"It is not in the mental consciousness that things can be harmonised and synthesised". The Mother Page 212 the exclusive reality of the universal ...
... the abiding law and essence of his being. A spiritual awakening will widen his consciousness, develop many Page 102 faculties which lie dormant in him, and advance him a step beyond Bergson, where he will perceive the one Elan, not only vital, but also physical, mental and spiritual,— the one, indivisible, conscious Force, deploying its manifoldness and diversity on the basis of its ...
... almost certainly exaggerated & unjustified. The emergence of a new metaphysical thinking, more practical & realistic than the old abstract philosophies, presaged by Nietzsche, fulfilled in James & Bergson, is a sign at once of the return of Europe upon this dangerous error and of a perception, subconscious perhaps, of that real defect in the character of metaphysics which gave a hold to the destructive ...
... among the highly cultured; at the present day, too, we have some renewed tendency of the kind. Nietzsche has had his influence, certain French thinkers also in France, the philosophies of James and Bergson have attracted some amount of public interest; but it is a mere nothing compared with the effective power of Asiatic philosophy. The average European draws his guiding views not from the philosophic ...
... life-force governing matter under certain limitations. Even if a clear aim is not implied, at least some sort of direction is. A directional life-force may not render evolution strictly finalistic and Bergson who believes in just an élan vital, a vital impetus without a clear aim, disclaims the title of finalist; but inasmuch as his élan vital is not quite indiscriminately creative but pushes towards ...
... the Sorbonne. [Aster received a Ph.D. from the University of Paris (Sorbonne) in Comparative Philosophy. Her doctoral thesis was “A Comparative Study of the Philosophies of Sri Aurobindo and Henri Bergson”.] On a visit home to Pondicherry during that period, I asked the Mother, “This work is nearing completion, what should I do next?” She said, “You will know about it soon.” It was also about this ...
... is 11-12 Being fullness of 62,63 individual and universal 60 inner 39,41,139 parts of 30,56 planes of 86 surface (outer) 17,41,138 Benson, Herbert 146 Bergson 6 Berne, Eric 52, 53 Breuer, Joseph 25 Buddha, the 96 Cannon, Walter B. 145, 146 Capra, Fritjof 49 Consciousness 18 and attitudes 118 and awareness 59 ...
... ‘defeatism of humanity’ such as had never been seen before … “This vehement anti-enlightenment, fed by romantic impulses, was a phenomenon common to the whole of Europe; names like Carlyle, Sorel and Bergson underline this and at the same time indicate some of the main lines along which this reversal in the history of ideas moved. But nowhere did this critique of reason so fully expand into a ‘destruction ...
... Friedrich Nietzsche, with his philosophy of the Umwertung aller Werte (revaluation of all values) and the Übermensch (literally “overman”) was the philosopher en vogue, together with Henri Bergson and his vitalism, and Sigmund Freud and his theory of the subconscious. Impressionism and the post-impressionist schools in painting destroyed the classical norms in the arts, as did the symbolist ...
... mysterious, scientifically untreatable force of life. Vitalism, the acceptance of the reality of such a life force, kept and keeps raising its head. Around 1900 it became, with figures like Henri Bergson and Hans Driesch, a widespread and outspoken movement. It has systematically been condemned by academic biologists as mysticism, animism or occultism. Richard Dawkins proclaims: “Everything ultimately ...
... was born at a time when the human being turned inwards and subjected to close scrutiny all that had gone before. This happened in literature (Proust, Rimbaud, Mallarmé), philosophy (Nietzsche and Bergson), psychology (Freud and Jung), biology (Darwin, Pasteur) and physical science (the Curies, Planck, Lorentz, Einstein). The incredible twentieth century, the greatest show in all history, was being ...
... lism restated the rights of the emotional components of human nature. This change was initiated in the arts, foremost by the Impressionist “light explosion”. In quick succession Nietzsche, Freud, Bergson and Proust – to name only a few of the important innovators – appeared on the cultural scene. All contended the sole rule of reason; the human being burst out of the straight-jacket of the rational ...
... Circa 1927. 69. Late 1920s to early 1930s. 70. Circa 1927. 71. Circa 1942. Written below the quotations from a book on Bergson mentioned in the note to piece 32. The present piece is headed by the numeral 2, which separates it from the notes. Unlike the notes, the piece is not enclosed in inverted commas and so has been ...
... little I knew about philosophy I picked up desultorily in my general reading. I once read, not Hegel, but a small book on Hegel, but it left no impression on me. Later, in India, I read a book on Bergson, but that too ran off "like water from a duck's back". I remembered very little of what I had read and absorbed nothing. German metaphysics and most European philosophy since the Greeks seemed to me ...
... literary at the same time that it was expository — a combination of qualities found in a mere handful of philosophers. The author of the Republic and the Symposium Berkeley. Fichte, Schopenhauer, Bergson, Bradley, William James are the ones that strike me at the moment. Then there was the fascination of the actual life aiming to plumb the In-world and penetrate the Over-world as well as move in step ...
... universal consensus of philosophers instead of Aristotle at loggerheads with Plato, Kant going hammer-and-tongs at the Schoolmen as well as the Empiricists, Bertrand Russell spitting fire at Bergson. The spectacle, though extremely fascinating, is a trifle ludicrous too. Seeing that all these men possessing first-class minds cannot agree, one is inclined to think that the heat of utter se ...
... amateur philosophers. These were the common questions that troubled me: Does the Divine exist? "What is Divine Power? etc. Not big, high, philosophical questions like those of Dr. Radhakrishnan or Bergson, but of a common man, of an average student. And He has answered me in the same vein, making the answers as simple as possible, and as full of rasa as possible. Had there been no rasa, I think ...
... only just to be able to pour the new into the old. But this conservatism, which is another name for tamas is fatal to the living truth within. Even like the é lan vital so gloriously hymned by Bergson, the inmost consciousness, the central truth of being, the soul é lan has always a forward-looking reference. And it is precisely because the normal instrument of the body and life and mind has ...
... 52 Baudelaire, 48 Beethoven, 88 Behaviourism, 326 Benda, Julien, 119 - La Trahison des Clercs, 119 Bentham, 50, 140 Berdyaev, 260 Bergson, 16-20, 255, 327, 351, 364 Bernard, Tristan, 373 Bernhardi, 24 Bethlehem, 215 Beveridge Plan, the, 129 Bharata, 93, 161 Bhasa, 96 Bhisma, 80 ...
... phenomenon and faculty of humour. Page 23 Aristotle felt it to be the perception of some sort of unseemliness, of some defect that does not involve pain or injury. According to Henri Bergson the comic is something 'mechanical' encrusted upon the living. In Immanuel Kant's view the comic is "an affection arising from the sudden transformation of a strained expectation into nothing ...
... its wider, deeper and higher domains. The evolutionary study of humanity has its origin in our times in the Darwinian theory, but it has found developments in the writings of philosophers like Bergson, Alexander, Smutts, Whitehead and Teillard de Chardin. But the most elaborate and comprehensive study is to be found in the writings of Sri Aurobindo, particularly, in his The Life Divine, The Synthesis ...
... its present critical stage. Sri Aurobindo had made a detailed study of human history as also of the evolutionary processes, and not only as we find them in the light of modern theories of Darwin, Bergson, Samuel Alexander, Whitehead, Teilhard de Chardin and others but more importantly in the light of Indian knowledge of spiritual forces working behind the external developments of forms that emerge ...
... from some of the early Greek thinkers (Anaxagoras or Democritus, for example), coming to more Page 222 recent times, we can say that line runs fairly well-represented from Leibnitz to Bergson. In India the Sankhyas and the Vaisheshikas move towards and approach the position; the Tantriks make a still more near approach. Once again, to repeat in other terms the distinction which may ...
... Petites vieilles", 66n Bauls, 223 Bayle, 1O9n -Nouvelle de la Ripublique des Lettres, 1O9n Beethoven, 163 Bengal, 164, 228, 235, 261 Benois, 153 Berdyaev, Nicholas 129 Bergson, lOin., 248, 286 Bhattacharya, Purnendu Prasad, 215 -"I Embark", 214 Bible, the, 50 Blake, 74, 76, 81, 125-6, 128, 240 -"Auguries of Innocence", 74n., 81n -"Jerusalem",81n ...
... beauty gathered, like honey from all places and stored and ranged and stalled with the utmost decorative skill. Yet the difference between the two is not less pronounced. A philosopher is reminded of Bergson, the great exponent of movement as reality, in connection with certain aspects of Tagore. Indeed, Beauty in Tagore is something moving, flowing, danc- ing, rippling; it is especially the beauty which ...
... 226, 253, 334, 349, 379 Axis Powers, the, 66 BABYLON, 199 Bach, 393,424,427 Ba1arama, 44, 207-8 Bankim (Chandra Chatterjee), 21 Beatrice, 203 Beethoven, 393-5, 424 Bengal, 21 Bergson, 143 Berkeley, 137 Bhaga,208 Bible, the, 100, 127, 152, 186, 192,397 Bois de Fontaineb1eu, 287 Book of the Dead, 133 Borodine, 427 Brahma, 208 Brahman, 3, 9-10, 22, 68, ...
... universe is not in the body, but in the emotion of the vital being and the heart. Likewise vitalism stands over against materialism, and idealism or romanticism over against realism and naturalism. Bergson contra Haeckel, Paul Verlaine contra Guy de Maupassant and Théophile Gautier. But it does not mean that we shall arrive at the true universal literature if we solely cling to idealism, the vital ...
... random chance, natural selection, struggle for existence and survival of the fittest is still surviving, powerful trends have emerged to challenge it through theories such as those of Vitalism of Bergson , Emergent Evolution of Alexander, Holism of Smutts, Ingressive Idealism of Whitehead, and Spiritual Evolution of Teillard De Chardin. In India, Sri Aurobindo's theory of Supramental Evolution is ...
... Philosophy of Biological Science, Englewood Cliffs, Prentice Hall, N J, 1974. 9 Vide., American Public Media, Interview of Ms. Tippett with Dr. Newland, 2007. 10 Vide., Moore, F.C.T, Bergson: Thinking Backwards, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996. " Vide., Peel, J.D.Y, Herbert Spencer, The Evolution of a Sociologist, Heinemann, London, 1971. 12 Vide., Alexander ...
... scientific theory of evolution has not received universal acceptance. Many philosophers have provided new accounts of the process of evolution. These philosophical theories, such as those of Bergson, Whitehead, and Pierre de Chardin are speculative, and they do not carry scientific conviction. In contrast, the spiritual theory of evolution as developed by Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950) and the ...
... the making or drive of ingression of higher powers of consciousness will continue to liberate corresponding powers imprisoned in man. Flying on the wings of speculation of leading philosophers like Bergson, Alexander and Whitehead, we also see scientists releasing tremendous Page 116 packets of energies from the atom and grappling with the biological cell to release from it secrets of ...
... the making or drive of ingression of higher powers of consciousness will continue to liberate corresponding powers imprisoned in man. Flying on the wings of speculation of leading philosophers like Bergson, Alexander and Whitehead, we also see scientists releasing tremendous packets of energies from the atom and grappling with the biological cell to release from it secrets of immortality; and we begin ...
... reflected on the faces of the Bengali women. In the structure of the Bengalis, the statuesqueness of the Greeks is not to be found, but there is gracefulness and charm. And what is this gracefulness? Bergson has given a nice explanation to the effect: The soul imparts a portion of its winged lightness to the body it animates: the immateriality which thus passes into matter is what is called gracefulness ...
... appears, then he cannot exceed the realm of sense-perceptions. But without reason he will simply indulge in chimeras and build castles in the air which are but deformations of: sense-perceptions. Bergson the philosopher, however, opines that the intellect by itself cannot go beyond the domain of sense-knowledge, because it comes into being and exists in the field of the senses by way of a necessity ...
... contribution to the world of Thought and Philosophy now is not new. It was the late Sir Francis Young-husband who said that it is the greatest contribution to contemporary philosophy after that of Henry Bergson. His master-piece, The Life Divine, was highly prized by Romain Rolland. In what consists the speciality of the contribution ? Apart from his spiritual experience what has he given to the world of ...
... of the future, for Matter itself was ceasing to be real and concrete. The supremacy of human reason was being challenged by the development of psychology and the new philosophies of Kierkegaard, Bergson and others. It was an age of problems, paradoxes and growing perplexities, a welter of idea-forces never known before in the whole history of the human race. The ideals of unity, freedom and ind ...
... Bain, F.W. 403,451 Baji Prabhou 12,52,53,340,342,458 Bande mataram 3, 9,10,12,51 Bede,The Venerable 459 Berdyaev 34,35,270 Bergson 33,34,399,400,404 Bhagavad Gita 21, 25, 26, 30, 31, 33, 56, 224-225,257,294,309,413,460 Bbagavata 56,256 Page 493 ...
... tradition, but also because of the different foundations on which they reared their respective epic edifices. Both of them believed in Evolution, and both had had mystic experiences. Kazantzakis, like Bergson, thought in terms of 'emergent evolution'; the elan vital, in their view, struggled and surged to achieve new forms of life. During his vigil on Mount Athos, Kazantzakis saw the Combatant pushing ...
... thought. 62 These and other ideas, mainly derived from his mystic experience on the Holy Mountain of Athos, were woven by Kazantzakis—no doubt with an admixture of strands of thought from Bergson and Nietzsche, and perhaps also Oswald Spengler—into a philosophical memoir in a poetical style entitled Spiritual Exercises: Salvatores Dei, which in the Kazantzakis canon perhaps corresponds to ...
... know do not give man the knowledge of the Truth; Reason is mainly useful for practical purposes because it enables man to deal with universal facts as they are organized now. That was the view which Bergson took : “Reason”, he said “is an instrument of action not of knowledge.” It is organized knowledge directed to action. When you have taken up a position intuitively, reason comes in afterwards and ...
... evolutionary march. 74 Nicolai Hartmann's dualism of Value and Reality is in sharp contrast to Sri Aurobindo's affirmation that there is but one Value which is also the one Reality (Sachchidananda) . 75 Bergson and Sri Aurobindo, "two thinkers of the greatest creative power of the present day", were both prophets of Evolution, both "volcanic" thinkers, and if for the European philosopher "the ultimate destiny ...
... of things to their Reality, a resolute exploration of the kingdom of Truth. This urge or élan is not foreign to earthly life. In fact, it is the mainspring of all its evolutionary progress. Bergson was inspired only by the vital aspect of it, but it has other deeper and subtler aspects, an intuitive Page 362 contemplation of which reveals to us the ultimate meaning and destiny ...
... over the world and are being accepted with a significant rapidity, ideas inevitably subversive of any premature typal order of economic rationalism, dynamic ideas such as Nietzsche’s Will-to-live, Bergson’s exaltation of Intuition above intellect or the latest German philosophical tendency to acknowledge a suprarational faculty and a suprarational order of truths. Already another mental poise is beginning ...
... us. A wide and rationalising (not rationalistic) intelligence deploying and marshalling out a deep intuitive and direct Knowledge-that is the pattern of human mind developing in the new age. Bergson's was a harbinger, a definite landmark on the way. Sri Aurobindo's The Life Divine arrives and opens the very portals of the marvellous temple city of a dynamic integral knowledge. Page 248 ...
... us. A wide and rationalising (not rationalistic) intelligence deploying and marshalling out a deep intuitive and direct Knowledge—that is the pattern of human mind developing in the new age. Bergson's was a harbinger, a definite landmark on the way. Sri Aurobindo's The Life Divine arrives and opens the very portals of the marvellous temple city of a dynamic integral knowledge. Page 254 ...
... element or another - out of fire, air, water and earth - is permeated by ether that suddenly a person turns towards the spiritual life with a direct cry. The cry puts the person in contact with what Bergson's teacher called the "Within-Beyond" but since only one element has been etherealised there is either a shooting off into that intimate unknown to the neglect of this element's companions or a kind ...
... certain glamour, which in the popular imagination still hangs round the ancient words, mysticism and intuition." Mistaken, if you choose to think so; but obsolete? What then are we to make of Bergson's intuition, James' cosmic consciousness, Eucken's superconscient, the remarkable trend towards mysticism of recent scientists, mathematicians, thinkers, the still more remarkable speculations of c ...
... over the world and are being accepted with a significant rapidity, ideas inevitably subversive of any premature typal order of economic rationalism, dynamic ideas such as Nietzsche's Will-to-live, Bergson's exaltation of Intuition above intellect or the latest German philosophical tendency to acknowledge a suprarational faculty and a suprarational order of truths. Already another mental poise is beginning ...
... differed from Freud chiefly in two respects. In the first place, Jung maintained that the libido is not a purely sexual drive, but a general "psychic energy" or "life-instinct" (somewhat similar to Bergson's élan vital) which expresses itself in diverse forms, including the sexual urge. Secondly, Jung believed that besides the unconscious in the individual spoken of by Freud, there is a collective ...
... × This remark remained valid long after the Great War (i.e. the First World War), considering Bergson’s influence on Jean-Paul Sartre (see Bernard-Henri Lévy: Le Siècle de Sartre ) and Nietzsche’s influence on Michel Foucault and others. ...
... closing gate upon new interminable vistas of his glory. Page 220 × These notes were written apropos of Bergson's "philosophy of change"; "you" below would refer to a proponent of this philosophy . ...
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